THE WORLD READS WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER — 8,324,077 VISITS IN ONE YEAR | 2,905,611 VISITORS VISIT 8,324,077 TIMES 3 TIMES EVERY DAY IN ONE YEAR. HIGHEST ACTIVITY IN WPCNR HISTORY.White PlainsCitizeNetReporter lifted its worldwide visits from unique visitors to wpcnr.com to 8,324,077,a 1,306,419 increase in visits in one year from 7,017,658 visits to the site last year which covers White Plains and Westchester County. The 8,324,077 visits were made by 2,005,611 unique visitors who visited wpcnr an average of 3 visits a day. ON JULY 20- -2026 visitors have accessed wpcnr and made 3,072 visits an average of 1.6 visits. In the last week 33,495 individual vistors made 54,458 visits, averaging 1.6 visits. In the last month, 152,940 visitors recorded 229,338 visits (1.5 visits)

City Proposes 1.7% Budget Increase to $179.1 Million– Tax Rate Up 2.4%–$70 on $650G Home

Posted on April 7, 2015 by John Bailey

WPCNR QUILL AND EYESHADE. By John F. Bailey. April 7, 2015:

The City of White Plains introduced its proposed 2015-16 city budget yesterday to the Common Council, not cutting any city positions and expressing confidence that sales tax revenues will equal last year’s total of $51.8 Million, though sales tax receipts reported by state through January are on a pace to hit $48 Million.

The city predicts a half percent increase in sales tax receipts based on estimates through February.

The state is late in reporting February numbers, and expects the March total to be delivered to WPCNR by April 15.

The City proposes a $179.1 Million budget, an increase of $3 Million over last year. It proposes a property tax rate increase of $4.60 to $200.74. This would increase the city tax on a $650,000 home $71 from $3231 to $3,302.

The budget is described by the city as “maintaining city services at levels comparable to the current year and all mandated expenses are funded.”

The budget creates a new position of Special Patrol Officer, who will report to the Police Department to monitor taxi service at the TransCenter “to ensure a more friendly consumer experience.”

The city reports labor contracts are dependent on bargaining and step increases. Salaries are budget to rise 1% and debt service by 9%.

WP SCHOOL AID WINDFALL COULD CREATE 1% PROPERTY TAX CUT–IF BOARD OF ED CHOOSES. Business Office Mullls How to Use Aid Increase.

Posted on April 7, 2015 by John Bailey

WPCNR SCHOOL DAYS. By John F. Bailey.April 7, 2015:

It was back to school in White Plains, New York USA Monday and the White Plains Board of Education has a pleasant problem.

The district has been notified its projected school aid as a result of the passing of the state budget is going from $17.8 Million this year(2014-15) to $22.6 Million, a $4,754,497 increase in school aid over last year where the state gave us just $17,864,500.

This school aid bonanza from the legislature of $4,754,497, (the highest year-to-year increase the district has ever received) is $1,252,322 more than the tax levy increase of $3,502,175 the district has in its proposed budget of $204.670,480 that increases the budget from last year $4,770,480.

This could mean that the school district could keep the tax rate where it was last year ($600.22/$1,000 if the school aid increase is not dictated by the state to be spent in specific ways.

It also could be used to lower the tax rate about 1% (instead of the proposed 2.25% tax increase) to $594 per $1,000 of valuation to give the owner of a $650,000 home a $100 Tax cut from $9,900 to 9,800.

I asked Fred Seiler, Assistant Superintendent for Business, if the $4,754,497 windfall in school aid comes with strings. No matter how you slice it this is found money, since you can keep the budget where it is, and still fund all they proposed to do (most notably 15 new positions), without raising taxes a penny, if they choose to do that.

It should be noted there could be restrictions that the district or the state has not told the district about or that the district has not shared with us.

It should be noted too that if the district earmarks the $4,754,497 for new position hires, infrastructure, etc., it may not be available next year, and any new hires made with that money would have to be funded in the 2016-2017 budget.

Seiler sent this statement to WPCNR Monday:

“I have begun to review the state aid data. The superintendent and I will prepare a recommendation for Board of Education review and action at the Board meeting on April 13th.”

OPENING DAY IS THE BEST DAY OF THE YEAR

Posted on April 6, 2015 by John Bailey

WPCNR Press Box. April 6, 2015: They’re getting ready at the Big Ball Park.

Today the Bronx Bombers return to Yankee Stadium. In the honor of Opening Day, WPCNR brings back this original celebration I wrote about why Opening Day is the best day of the year

OPENING DAY is better than Christmas Day,
When you look out and know they’ll play,
Dreary gray or brilliant spring sunray
Opening Day means The Big Show is back today.

Decades past, Opening Day for fanatics starved,
Eager for sharp crack of ash on horsehide carved;
Pennants snapping in northwest winds
Top ramparts of inviting walls arches and sculpted friezes wistfully escarped.

Fans lucky to get away with ducats
Marvel at flannels sharp whites pristeen,
To play in the warm zephyrs in NY blazened caps,
Dashing specks of white warmup on the greenest green.

Motor cars pant in traffic jams on the Deegan,
Down Yawkey Way, on 35th and Shields or Waveland’s jam.
The first glimpse of storied Park,
The place where ball is played, where ghosts of Ted, Babe, Duke
Mel, Spahnie, Whitey, Mickey, Willie, Yaz, Minnie and Sandy lark.

Pay a fortune to park, pass stogie smoking old men
at the same gates for a hundred years,

Now out into the street

You go, aroma of roasting chestnuts, pungent cigars sweet,

Cries of “scorecard heah” “programs,heah” shout out, neath light towers to heaven.

Fans in cap and uniform, little boys and girls gawk in awe hoping to make the Anthem
Never seeing such sheer walls, topped with the legend “GameToday 1:30 PM.”

Clutching slim cardboard tix to Section 14 Upper Deck up to the turnstiles
Festooned with souvenirs more dear as diamonds, beyond, the lure of endless aisles.

Into press of crowd, grizzled usher,

RIPS YOUR TICKET.
Turnstile turns, clicks, and into the cathedral of ball you go
Into the rotunda greeted with magic signs dazzling the senses —
UPPER LEVELS SECTIONS 1 to 39, 2 to 40

Hawkers shout –Voices of Flatbush — colorful books in hand

“Yearbook heah,” “Dodger Yearbook here,” “Hot dog, heah,”
Assail ears! Up ramps you climb to the sign “NEXT HOMESTAND”

Walking the catwalk,sliver of blue is first look of the magic sphere
Into the sunlight splaying the vast rake of the mighty stand.

Below are baseball knights of the diamond in white hues
Cavorting, snapping throws across immaculate red clay
As majestic fungo bats — CRACK! send white spheres soaring to filling bleachers a mile away,
Bunting flutter from the deck rails red, white and true blues.

Old Glory furls on highest pole in centerfield
Colorful signage deliver the manly flavor of the only real game,
GILLETTE To Look Sharp, The Red Sox use Lifeboy, Schaefer It’s A Hit
Hey, Neighbor Have a Gansett, White Owl Cigars, Hit Sign Win Suit

From old friendly walls, to Gladys Gooding on the organ
Comfy old green scoreboard display
Today’s games in the bigs BETTER THAN CNN
CHI CLE BOS DET, CHI STL, NY WAS make you king for a day.
Two Bits for a scorecard, usher wipes your seat, ballpark fills your heart.

Penciling lineup 422B, 1 SS, 14 1B, 4 CF, 39 C, 6 RF, 23 LF 19 3B 36 P

Smell of beer, peanuts and pretzels.

Nippy air, warm rays sink into face feels nice,

Starters wheel,deal, kicking high on sidelines fueling expectancy

Men in blue, arms folded solemnly conduct the home plate regimen
Casey, Ralph , Walter, Joe and Sparky exchange lineup cards and knowing
Ground rules by heart, go over them for ritual’s sake.
Announcer entones “Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Welcome to Yankee Stadium.”

“Please rise for the playing of our national anthem,”
Nancy Faust at organ note by note renders baseball’s theme song
Rising on the breeze, uniting do-rag and ball cap,
Fedora, ponytail and bouffant in the spirit of the great game.

Grass is never greener on opening days
Strikes are louder, long drives electrify in alleys
Beers with whiter than white high creamy heads, Taste crisp cold mellow best brew all year

Smashes laser through short and in the gap in raucous rallies

Magicians without wands start 6-4-3s,

Backhand sure hits losing their caps

“Oh what a play’s” crackle on WGN with “CUBS WIN!”‘S

Jack and Mel, Vince, Red, Curt and Murph are back at the mikes turning mundane days

Into joy with a ninth inning elixir and “happy recaps”

Thunderous ROAR accolades the 2-out winner again creating big kids’ grins.

God’s Cathedral: The Sunrise Service Experience

Posted on April 5, 2015 by John Bailey

WPCNR PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE DAY. By the WPCNR ROVING PHOTOGRAPHER. Easter Sunday Dawn, April 5, 2015:

I attended services in God’s Cathedral this morning in White Plains New York, USA.

I walked out before dawn had broken on the eastern horizon. The full moon was still in the western sky as sunrise approached.

Walking north towards the Easter Sunday Service that was to begin 6:10 Easter morning, the first harbingers of dawn were soft chirping of birds high in the trees.

Approaching the First Baptist Church the very light green-blue flash of dawn broke across the eastern curvature of the Earth. It happens every morning, a sight that always holds the hope of endless promise for a new day every day. For every person, of every faith.

Emboldened, the arms of dawn first light extend themselves, embracing earth, encircling arms of orange-red-yellow-every color chasing darkness caressing beloved Earth with glow of promise, discovery, renewal – a light soft yet growing more intense and diffuse the very light green turns to light blue with warming orange glow beneath. All dawns are new and different each day, but none more revered than the dawn of an Easter Sunday.

The arms of dawn comfort the beleaguered the bereft, the believer, the skeptic alike. Announcing the Sun is coming.

Twenty persons were gathered for the Easter Sunday Service on the old J.C. Penny estate in White Plains, now the grounds of the First Baptist Church of White Plains & Iglesia Mision Bautista.There was linger of winter in this very late Spring on the grounds and it was 33 degrees.

Pastor Tim Dalton began with this statement: “Faith is believing in spite of the evidence and watching the evidence change.

The evocative hymn was sung with reverent wistfulness and I felt a feeling of wonder and warmth against the crisp morning… the sky to the West already turning blue with the dawn and the full moon on the wane.

We were there Easter morning, Allelu!

Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble

We were there Easter morning, Allelu!

After a solemn opening prayer delivered by the Pastor spoken as if he was one of the flock, saying what each of us came and probably felt on this morning; what the sunrise today represented; what the resurrection of Jesus of Nazereth signified, as the dawn rose glowing in the East. The confluence of the dawn presented an infusion of essense into the souls arriving to mark this special dawn.

A litany followed, the significance of the belief in the resurrection was articulated by response in the last three lines:

PEOPLE: TAKE HOLD OF YOUR COURAGE; RELEASE YOUR FEARS,

Pastor: Unleash the burined song within your souls; look death straight in the eye; walk on with confidence.

PEOPLE: For Christ the Lord is risen! Christ is risen for you!

A guitarist and three singers sang a beautiful hymn in Spanish. Hearing the eloquence of these versus in the haunting melody of guitar and the romance language conveyed the sweetness of the day:

Jesucristo,

Ya vencio la muerte;

Con poder glorioso

Ha resucitado.

Donde, oh muerte,

Donde esta tu triunfo?

Donde, oh sepulcro,

Donde tu Victoria?

El promote

Que tambien nosotros

Resucitaremos, Gloria, aleluya

Pastor Dalton read John 20:1-18 which had the eyewitness impact of the event that is recalled every year – and in the beginning for to recall the event was to invite imprisonment and death. Here are some of the words of the report of the Apostle John.

As Pastor Tim read the scripture from about 20 minutes to 7, the disk of the rising sun began to rise slowly in a blazing halo of brilliant yellow on the dark hills to the east:

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in (the tomb) and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in (the tomb). Then Simon Peter came, following him (the first disciple), and went into the tomb.

He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.

But Mary (Magdalene) stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet.

They said to her, “Woman why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”

When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”

Mary Magalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord” and she told them that he had said these things to her.

The passages were read Spanish, and as the sun rose brighter than an object you see just above the horizon, the singers and guitarist performed Gloria, Gloria Aleluya that featured this verse of hope:

Con ejercitos no gana sus

Victorias el Senior;

Ni con armas lucha contra

Satanas, el Tentador,

Lo potencia del Espiritu,

Ha dicho el Dios de amor,

Es lo que vencera.

The Sun disc fully risen, the Pastor asked the souls present to look and listen to the sounds and enjoy the sights of God’s creations around them. Chirping of birds was heard. Two seagulls flew west overhead with the dawn. Even a rabbit was seen to observe from some distance away. (Can you spot the rabbit below?)

The Group joined for a final hymn, Lord of the Dance, a song written by the Shaker community in the 19^th century, a graphic, but joyous song and autobiography of Jesus of Nazareth , a fitting coda on the significance of this morning. I quote the last three verses:

I danced on the Sabbath when I cured the lame,

The holy people said it was a shame;

They whipped and they stripped and they hung me high;

And they left me there on a cross to die.

I danced on a Friday and the sky turned black;

it’s hard to dance with the devil on your back;

they buried my body and they thought I’d gone,

but I am the dance and I still go on.

They cut me down and I leapt up high,

I am the life that’ll never never die;

I’ll live in you if you’ll live in me;

I am the Lord of the Dance, said he.

Dance, then, wherever you may be;

I am the Lord of the Dance, said he.

And I’ll lead you all wherever you may be

And I’ll lead you all in the dance, said he.

Pastor Duncan closed the sunrise ceremony encouraging all advising that the message of this day is to live lives of mercy, of caring, of tolerance, and working towards the good.